Awakening
by Sogo
Summary: "All that we see or seem, is a dream within a dream." -Edgar Allen Poe. Velma wakes up. (SDMI verse)


**One of these days I will manage to write a happy Scooby Doo story.**

 **That day is not today.**

 **SDMI. That's all I'm gonna say. SDMI.**

 **Awakening**

 _All that we see or seem, is a dream within a dream_

 _-Edgar Allen Poe_

-0-

She isn't sure when she first notices.

It's little things, things that don't make sense, don't add up, things that fall together, but the pieces don't fit, nothing fits, and it's so hard to even _see_.

It's like a broken window held together with nothing but careful balance and prayers.

(It's inevitable that one day it shatters.)

-0-

The story starts like this.

Her name is Velma Dinkley, and she is a member of Mystery Incorporated. They fight monsters and solve mysteries and one day they stumble onto something bigger than they'd ever imagined. It's the monster that made them. The mystery that drove them.

And it finishes with the five of them alone as their world collapses, implodes, time rewriting around them. It finishes with the five of them as the sole survivors of the beasts that killed their town. The lone observers of the massacure.

They lose.

They win.

The lines blur.

-0-

The story goes like this.

Her name is Velma Dinkley, and she is a member of Mystery Incorporated. Only Mystery Incorporated does not exist, not really, and there are no mysteries to solve. No monsters to fight.

They can't stay in a town filled with people they watched die. Not with people who don't know them, people who they don't know, people who are _wrong_.

A town that is _wrong_.

Once upon a time, perhaps they could have filled the roles the town seems to think they now play. Once upon a time, they could have dropped the mystery solving and adapted.

But the fairy tale is long ended.

The once-children have grown.

They leave.

They run like the wind, and try to forget the past that brought them to this. Because the town is different, but the world, oh, the world is full of mysteries, full of monsters, and it has been _waiting_ for Mystery Incorporated to solve them.

It's incredible.

Velma throws herself into it. She loves it, the chase, the clues, loves every moment with her friends as they struggle to solve each incredible case before them.

And yet…

( _...wrong._ )

-0-

The story goes like this.

Her name is Velma and she is a member of Mystery Incorporated. There's another monster they're chasing, some lake creature covered in slime, and something tickles in the back of her mind, like she's forgetting something.

Fred sets a trap and they watch as the monster slips through it, the net entangling them instead. Scooby alone is free as he leads the monster on a merry chase and the rest of them struggle to get out of the net and help and her mind is moving faster than it normally is with the adrenaline, and that's when-

( _Fred's traps aren't working, why aren't they working, Fred is a trapping prodigy, this is even worse than when he first started, he should be improving, whyisn'theimproving-_ )

-and it's gone and Scooby has accidentally saved the day again.

After the bad guy is led away in handcuffs, Velma finds herself with the rest of the gang, cheerfully deciding where to head to next and-

( _Where were we going?_ )

-they hear about another monster in another town that isn't far away. It takes no time at all to determine that they'll hunt it down, and make plans to head off the next morning. They get a pair of rooms at the local hotel and split up, Shaggy, Scooby, and Fred in one room and Daphne and Velma in the other.

Velma is happy with this, she is, she loves every moment, and yet.

Yet.

-0-

( _The story went like this._

 _Her name was Velma Dinkley and she was not a member of Mystery Incorporated, not any more. Not since the anger and lies had split the group apart._

 _By all rights she should have been at home, finding her own way, but she was in Russia, in a tiny hotel room, pulling on a catsuit._

" _Watch the gun there, V. Don't want to put someone's eye out."_

 _Velma laughed, spinning the gun around her finger. "No worries. You handle the gun, I'll handle the security system."_

 _Purple eyes glinted slyly. "We can race for that."_ )

-0-

The story goes like this.

Her name is Velma and she is a member of Mystery Incorporated.

It's not the first time she wakes up crying. It won't be the last.

She never remembers the dreams that break her heart.

-0-

The story goes like this.

Her name is Velma and she is a member of Mystery Inc.

Another day. Another mystery.

(She's never been so happy.)

( _Everything is wrong._ )

-0-

The story goes like this.

Her name is Velma and she is a member of Mystery Inc.

They gather around a flyer Shaggy has found, enraptured by the print upon it. It advertises a magic show, one that they have heard is being haunted.

Fred points out the date, June 28, saying that's tomorrow, they can make it if they hurry.

( _Isn't that today?_ )

Shaggy and Scooby protest, Daphne teases, and Velma makes the ultimate decision to check it out. A shiver runs up her spine as they leave the cafe they're in and enter the van.

( _Where were we going?_ )

-0-

The story goes like this.

Her name is Velma and she is a member of Mystery Inc.

It's a mystery and a mystery and a mystery. Her head is fuzzy.

It's the twenty-eighth of June and the twenty-eighth of June and the twenty-eighth of June. She can't think.

They were going somewhere. She can't remember.

She's happy and she loves her life, she doesn't want to be anywhere else.

Except… she does. Because she's missing something that makes her cry even if she can't remember, and even through the fun, something is wrong, wrong, _wrong_.

 _And she wakes up_.

-0-

The story goes like this.

Her name is Velma Dinkley and she is a member of Mystery Incorporated. And she remembers. She remembers the end of the world and the new one they found themselves in.

She's sleeping but awake in a room covered in red curtains, the floor black and white, and she sits in a chair facing another chair that holds a dog.

"Nova," she greets. "Only, it's not really Nova, is it? It's the Annunaki that spoke through her."

The dog bows her head. "It is."

"Why are we here?" Velma asks. She's not really asking. The Annunaki knows it.

"Why don't you tell me why you think we're here?"

Velma leans forward slightly. "I think we've been here the whole time. I think when we killed the Entity, our world didn't end… our lives did."

The Annunaki says nothing.

"Our town was completely killed by the Entity," Velma continues. "But the rest of the world? It could move on, couldn't it? They'd be shocked by the tragic loss of life, but it wouldn't be long before they forgot."

The Annunaki bows her head again. "You are… not wrong."

"So we're dead," Velma surmises calmly.

"Not entirely," the dog corrects. "My people wished to thank you for doing what we could not. We were able to save your consciousnesses here. In the dream world. And we tried to give you a perfect world to explore, to solve mysteries."

"But _we_ are dead, even if our consciousnesses… linger here," Velma pointed out. "And your world, nice as it is, is still a dream."

"Yes," the Annunaki sighs. "We could do no more."

"And we will never wake up from it," Velma says. "Not alive."

"No," the Annunaki agrees.

"And where do we go if we _do_ wake up?" Velma questions.

"Even I can not answer," the Annunaki admits.

Velma nods calmly. Some part of her already knew.

She closes her eyes. Right now, this is a choice. She could return to the dream world her friends still live in. Live happily ever after chasing monsters like she loves.

Or she could go on. To whatever's next. To where the rest of the town has gone. Her friends will likely not notice-the dream world will provide them with a replacement for her, and maybe even one day they, too, will wake.

It's a hard choice.

"What do you choose?" the Annunaki asks.

( _It's not hard at all_.)

-0-

The story ends like this.

Or maybe this is only the start of a new chapter.

Regardless, her name is Velma Dinkley and she was a member of Mystery Incorporated. She's not sure she can consider herself a member any longer, as she is leaving the rest of the gang behind, but they can't follow her. Not yet. Maybe one day.

Some part of her is scared, setting out on her own.

But she is a mystery solver at heart, and she always has been. And what lies beyond is the greatest mystery of all.

And there is something there, someone she knows will be there, someone she's been missing for a long time even not knowing who they were.

( _Glinting purple eyes and a sardonic smirk. "Took you long enough, V."_ )

Velma wakes up.

 **I think I hurt my heart. I'm going to crawl away and cry somewhere now.**


End file.
